Opposition’s tiny gains point to thaw in Belarus

Two opposition candidates won seats in the Belarusian parliament for the first time in 20 years, raising hopes that relations will warm further between the West and the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Following Sunday’s vote, Belarus election officials announced early Monday that Anna Konopatskaya from the United Civil Party and Elena Anisim, an independent candidate with ties to the opposition, both won in their districts — the first time non-government candidates have done this since 1996.

But there is zero chance that the newly elected 110-seat legislature could now become a springboard for any threat to Lukashenko’s 22-year hold on power, since the remaining seats are packed with the president’s loyalists, and the body has no real political authority. The president won a fifth term in office last year with 84 percent of the vote.

Lukashenko had been dubbed “Europe’s last dictator,” by U.S. officials a decade ago.

Nevertheless, these elections continue what has been a modest political thaw in Belarus in recent months. Earlier this year, Lukashenko released the last of the country’s political prisoners, prompting the European Union to lift sanctions in place since a 2010 crackdown against the opposition. The sanctions included a ban on Lukashenko traveling to EU countries. The U.S. also suspended some sanctions.

Lukashenko had been dubbed “Europe’s last dictator,” by U.S. officials a decade ago, but that was before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s turn towards authoritarianism and his invasion of Ukraine made Russia a much more pressing concern than Belarus.

Sunday’s election was one of the most open in recent memory. Of the 484 candidates who were allowed to run, nearly 200 came from opposition groups. Analysts now believe the opposition candidates’ victories could further improve ties between Western governments and Minsk.

“These kind of elections improve the trust that has been missing between the West and Lukashenko,” said Balazs Jarabik, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on Belarus. “The West will be satisfied with the opposition candidates entering parliament.”

A limited opening

What comes next is the big question. Minsk appears to be angling for Western investment and financial assistance, to help prop up its faltering Soviet-style economy. Output plummeted by 4 percent in 2015 and is predicted to drop even further this year. Lukashenko is hoping for a $3 billion International Monetary Fund loan.

The elections will not release this money, said Jarabik, but will help. The IMF is insisting on deep structural reforms, which Minsk is resisting, as Lukashenko’s power rests in part on his control of the economy.

Still, Jarabik said the dialogue between the IMF and the government will “strengthen and widen,” after the parliamentary elections.

The Belarusian leader has played a careful game over Russia’s policy towards Ukraine, refusing to give a final opinion on the legality of Russia’s 2014 land grab of Crimea.

Lukashenko also wants to offset pressure from Russia — Minsk’s main benefactor — which provides hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and cheap oil to prop up the Belarusian economy. But Belarus, a nation of just 10 million people, has resisted being subsumed completely by the Kremlin.

The Belarusian leader has played a careful game over Russia’s policy towards Ukraine, refusing to give a final opinion on the legality of Russia’s 2014 land grab of Crimea. He’s also publicly ruled out any chance of Moscow using Belarus as a launching pad for an invasion of Ukraine and resisted Russia’s attempts to expand its military presence on Belarusian soil.

That’s allowed him to position himself as something of a middleman between Moscow and the West, providing his capital as a location for the ongoing peace talks for the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will deliver their verdict on the overall conduct of the elections on Monday in Minsk. Outside experts will be watching to see if the OSCE mission will give a stamp of approval to the vote-counting process, which they were given full access to.

Still, it will be stretch to call this vote free and fair. “Let’s not be naïve. I think this was a well-managed process by the Belarusian authorities,” said Jarabik. “And there won’t be any dramatic changes in Belarus-Western relations … After all, the president is still Lukashenko.”

Related stories on these topics:

Eddie

Almost no one doubts that the West remains the main audience for these elections’ results. The OSCE, EU, and USA have already expressed doubts regarding the fairness of the Belarusian elections and have called for further reforms of electoral legislation. The artificial character of the campaign, as well copious fraud remain an open secret. However, given the continuing conflict with Russia and the balancing position of Belarus nobody wants to antagonise Lukashenka http://belarusdigest.com/story/belarusian-parliamentary-elections-does-everybody-win-27230

Posted on 9/16/16 | 2:49 PM CET

Maxim

While the West is satisfied with the opposition candidates entering Belarusian parliament, according to many Belarussians, the recent parliamentary elections there were not free and democratic as most of them do not actually support Lukashenkohttps://www.quora.com/Do-Belarussians-actually-support-Lukashenko/answer/Harry-Bates-4?prompt_topic_bio=1
Nevertheless, the OSCE and PACE have jumped to a conclusion that ‘the 11 September elections in Belarus were efficiently organized’, which shows great ‘democratic potential’ of this country and gives birth to hopes that ‘the Belarusian government together with the newly elected parliament will start the broader democratization process there’http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/belarus/263651
Maybe, because of such EU double democratic standards the last dictator in Europe manages to reign over Belarus for more than 20 years, recently turning even into the EU partner, eh?

Posted on 9/20/16 | 2:24 PM CET

Andrei

How could the last dictator in Europe manage to rule Belarus for more than 20 years? I think it’s rather simple in situation when democratic Europe openly declares that ‘the 11 September elections in Belarus have been efficiently organized’, and where the fact that 2 opposition candidates have won seats in the Belarusian Parliament raises Brussels’ hopes that ‘relations between the EU and the authoritarian government of President Lukashenko will warm further’https://www.quora.com/Do-Belarussians-actually-support-Lukashenko/answer/Harry-Bates-4?prompt_topic_bio=1